Babies are born. A name is then required. And after the name is fixed, a party is thrown. Of course, by the tone of these sentences, you know I hardly am in favour of parties - least of all one thrown to announce a mere name.
So the evening I was told I had to attend one such affair, I cooked up my choicest excuse. I told Mother I would be working.
“Working? You're sure?”
“Yes, why?”
“Well, you never work on holidays.”
“Of course, I don't.”
“This christening is on a Sunday.”
Well, there I stood, mouth open, looking into the mirror for a better excuse. But the mirror merely slapped my reflection back into my gaze and I saw how stupid I looked.
“Oh,” I said for want of saying something, “it's on a Sunday eh?”
“Yes, and you have to be there.”
So, on the Sunday that followed, saw me stand in my very best at the very worst of the ticket counters at Mumbai Central station. The queue took its own sweet time to show it had some life and move. And I realized that time would move just as slowly at the ceremony and on our way to the ceremony as well.
Needless to say I was right. We took more than an hour to reach Borivali. And the train that got us there made it a point to land up alongside Platform no. 8 - that long lonely platform 20 minutes away from the rickshaw stand.
As I wrestled with the knob of the door to the hall where the ceremony sat awaiting me, I could hear familiar voices - relatives keen to know when I am to marry, acquaintances hell bent on knowing where I work, and strangers insisting on cooking up gossip sans any ingredient.
Well, the door finally lost and let me in. Mother followed me and we went and sat near a crowd that looked familiar to us. Almost immediately hands waved and faces smiled.
“Oh! After a long time!,” said one face.
“Yes!”
“Where have you been? It's been such a long time!,” insisted another.
“Yes, we have been busy.”
“What busy? You never ever come for any function.”
That complaint whips our ears with clockwork regularity almost every time we land up for a party. Frankly, I am busy. And so is Mother, with her housework. Sister Dearest never did have an appetite to hobnob with the relatives. As for Father Dearest, he's rather whimsical: Either he'll attend and talk very sweetly or stay away and just sit poker-faced.
Here, for this particular gathering, he had chosen the former behaviour: It was his darling sister's daughter's son's christening after all and he just had to let people know what a charming brother and uncle he was.
While I busied myself with a chicken lollipop, I noticed he smiled rather too often at the baby in question. As a result, the baby - true to human nature - took his smiles for granted and gave him the royal snub.
It was my turn to smile then and disguise my glee as I saw Father Dearest try desperately in a manner as amiable as he could make it to make the child smile.
To my left, Mother was making sweeping statements on why we somehow never manage to land up at every do. And just as she launched into another paragraph about what her children are so busy with, the MC - the baby's grandmother, Father Dearest's sister - beckoned us all to participate in a game that was way too similar to Bombing the Cities. Only here, the cities were replaced with baby items - nappies, feeding bottles, prams, booties, etc.
You see I am 30. I tell people I love Pride and Prejudice, but what I don't tell them is that I have also read a few chapters of Lady Chatterley's Lover. And I admit I have often wondered whether Madame Bovary did indeed have some more sleaze in her head. So naturally then, I felt the game too Disney-like for my tastes. And so did a number of others in that room who were sporting the same decade as I.
But this realization was not the fortune of the grand MC. She wanted to play the game and she saw to it that she had her way. I slipped away to the bar while she went about calling names and prodding people to form a circle. And by the time the prams were bombed, I was sitting down with a beer and had let loose my eyes on the circle.
Shapes that melted into all sizes moved as if they were walking through hell knowing fully well they actually deserved a chair in heaven. Even so, like lambs lead to the slaughter, they trudged from one baby item to the other - the grand MC goading them all along to dance as well.
They all were bored and stiff but as per party protocol, they smiled and dashed any hopes I had of them slashing their faces with a scathing frown. I realized that that was their experience at work. After all, they might have attended several such christenings with even more idiocy thrown in. And since they did not wish to escape such ceremonies, the best they could do was come up with the practised smile to cover the seething frustration of a frown that tried hard to seize control of their mouths.
I was bored. You cannot keep watching a beauty pagaent without yawning and this was even worse. So, I did the next best thing: I asked when's lunch....
To be continued.
So the evening I was told I had to attend one such affair, I cooked up my choicest excuse. I told Mother I would be working.
“Working? You're sure?”
“Yes, why?”
“Well, you never work on holidays.”
“Of course, I don't.”
“This christening is on a Sunday.”
Well, there I stood, mouth open, looking into the mirror for a better excuse. But the mirror merely slapped my reflection back into my gaze and I saw how stupid I looked.
“Oh,” I said for want of saying something, “it's on a Sunday eh?”
“Yes, and you have to be there.”
So, on the Sunday that followed, saw me stand in my very best at the very worst of the ticket counters at Mumbai Central station. The queue took its own sweet time to show it had some life and move. And I realized that time would move just as slowly at the ceremony and on our way to the ceremony as well.
Needless to say I was right. We took more than an hour to reach Borivali. And the train that got us there made it a point to land up alongside Platform no. 8 - that long lonely platform 20 minutes away from the rickshaw stand.
As I wrestled with the knob of the door to the hall where the ceremony sat awaiting me, I could hear familiar voices - relatives keen to know when I am to marry, acquaintances hell bent on knowing where I work, and strangers insisting on cooking up gossip sans any ingredient.
Well, the door finally lost and let me in. Mother followed me and we went and sat near a crowd that looked familiar to us. Almost immediately hands waved and faces smiled.
“Oh! After a long time!,” said one face.
“Yes!”
“Where have you been? It's been such a long time!,” insisted another.
“Yes, we have been busy.”
“What busy? You never ever come for any function.”
That complaint whips our ears with clockwork regularity almost every time we land up for a party. Frankly, I am busy. And so is Mother, with her housework. Sister Dearest never did have an appetite to hobnob with the relatives. As for Father Dearest, he's rather whimsical: Either he'll attend and talk very sweetly or stay away and just sit poker-faced.
Here, for this particular gathering, he had chosen the former behaviour: It was his darling sister's daughter's son's christening after all and he just had to let people know what a charming brother and uncle he was.
While I busied myself with a chicken lollipop, I noticed he smiled rather too often at the baby in question. As a result, the baby - true to human nature - took his smiles for granted and gave him the royal snub.
It was my turn to smile then and disguise my glee as I saw Father Dearest try desperately in a manner as amiable as he could make it to make the child smile.
To my left, Mother was making sweeping statements on why we somehow never manage to land up at every do. And just as she launched into another paragraph about what her children are so busy with, the MC - the baby's grandmother, Father Dearest's sister - beckoned us all to participate in a game that was way too similar to Bombing the Cities. Only here, the cities were replaced with baby items - nappies, feeding bottles, prams, booties, etc.
You see I am 30. I tell people I love Pride and Prejudice, but what I don't tell them is that I have also read a few chapters of Lady Chatterley's Lover. And I admit I have often wondered whether Madame Bovary did indeed have some more sleaze in her head. So naturally then, I felt the game too Disney-like for my tastes. And so did a number of others in that room who were sporting the same decade as I.
But this realization was not the fortune of the grand MC. She wanted to play the game and she saw to it that she had her way. I slipped away to the bar while she went about calling names and prodding people to form a circle. And by the time the prams were bombed, I was sitting down with a beer and had let loose my eyes on the circle.
Shapes that melted into all sizes moved as if they were walking through hell knowing fully well they actually deserved a chair in heaven. Even so, like lambs lead to the slaughter, they trudged from one baby item to the other - the grand MC goading them all along to dance as well.
They all were bored and stiff but as per party protocol, they smiled and dashed any hopes I had of them slashing their faces with a scathing frown. I realized that that was their experience at work. After all, they might have attended several such christenings with even more idiocy thrown in. And since they did not wish to escape such ceremonies, the best they could do was come up with the practised smile to cover the seething frustration of a frown that tried hard to seize control of their mouths.
I was bored. You cannot keep watching a beauty pagaent without yawning and this was even worse. So, I did the next best thing: I asked when's lunch....
To be continued.
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